Lost and Found
by Gloria Byrd
Summary: "We found him," the note read. Lavellan, a mere shadow of her former self, wants to believe they finally found Solas. But nothing is so simple. For her dream of a happily ever after to become reality, for the lovers to survive their encounter, they must battle their own demons, dreams, and nightmares, or else lose everything they've been searching for. Red. Everything is red...


_"We found him."_

Three words. Lavellan's calloused fingertips trembled over the slanted, scraggly, and yet elegant script that had dug trenches into the parchment. Ink came back on her fingers. It left smudges on the paper. Her wavy red hair, tangled from its last combing being three days ago, fell over her ice blue eyes, veiling their tear-filled surface from the courier who awaited her company at the door. Lavellan swore and blessed, wept and beamed, died and lived in the span of a second as she read those three plain words that held an infinite amount of meaning.

"Inquisitor?"

And like a battering ram, that fool messenger boy shattered her rejoicing, reminding her of the sinister truth that lurked behind the existence of those words and why her feelings at the moment should be ones of dread and woe.

"I am coming." Her words were audible only to herself, barely.

The Inquisitor straightened her back, wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her scarred right hand, and drew her face into neutrality all in one smooth motion. It was a practiced movement, mastered after years of feigned strength. It was now as familiar as gazing longingly out her stained glass window as though at that very moment _he_ would come riding through gallantly on a gleaming horse. No. What a foolish comparison! It would be more like him to slip into her dreams, let her see him, and then he in his wolfen form dart away, dragging out this agonizing game of cat and mouse as long as it could go.

Shaking herself to alertness, she glided after the courier, her heart beating incongruously with the lithe gait of her elven legs. Dust rose at her arrival in the sparsely-treaded hallway outside her room and settled long after the door slammed shut behind them with startling finality. The great hall rose up around the two. Moth-eaten Dalish banners waved lethargically at the newcomers. Their boots left no trace on the worn carpet that once led the awed eyes of Skyhold's visitors to the throne of the Inquisitor. Several doors opened and shut on their way to the war room. Josephine was not at her desk. That was expected. Despite her present absence, her desk was flawless. Towers of parchment lay in perfect alignment. Dust did not mar the fine oak surface of the tabletop. Her Dalish banner, part of the set in the great hall, was as flawless as the day Lavellan laid her hands on the collection. A fire burned in the hearth, crackling as its tongues licked dead gray bark. Lavellan turned her cold gaze back to the next door through which the messenger had already passed. As she did so, her eyes passed over the Dalish banner. Her disinterested expression became a frown. She knew it was green, but her vision told her otherwise. She surveyed the room one last time. Everything was gray these days.

Finally, she reached the war room. The portal loomed over her as if mocking her gaunt frame. She shook her head and pushed open the smaller door meant for entry with such ferocity that it snapped back and struck the wall on the other side. Heads swiveled to her. She stalked forward, avoiding their glares and concerned gazes. Cullen's especially.

"Where is he?" Lavellan inquired. It no longer startled her how dry her own voice was. She planted her hands on the map of Thedas pinned down before her. Her fervent eyes swept like a freezing gale over the rend where she had stabbed the map five years before. Beside the scar lay the town of Solas. She nearly snarled at the reminder.

The advisors' hesitation was as blatant as it was aggravating.

"Tell me!" She slammed a fist on the table. Silence ensued.

Josephine began, "Shaelle––"

"No! That is not my name!" Lavellan exclaimed, whirling around to meet Josephine with an accusing finger. "I am the Inquisitor!" Her voice was thunder.

Josephine blinked. Leliana stepped in front of Josephine and swatted Lavellan's hand away. "I know you have been fearing this moment, but––"

Lavellan scoffed. "'_Fearing_'? I've been looking forward to it!" A maniacal glint set her eyes aflame. "You're the ones who are scared. Yes, you! You know that you can't stop me if I choose to join him! That's why all of you got here before me. That's why I was the last to know you found him. Am I right?" Cullen gaped at Lavellan's monologue; it was her longest rant in a year. "If you won't answer my question, at least tell me where the hell he is!" Lavellan bore into each of them in turn with her pale eyes, those ice picks.

Josephine was visibly startled, as was Cullen, but he less so. Leliana watched Lavellan with an almost impartial stare. "He's at an elven temple. Our soldiers can point the way for you if you let them accompany you."

"No," Lavellan replied just a bit too hastily. "I can find it." Her face held a permanent grimace. She turned to leave.

"Why did you tell her?" Cullen reproached, shaking his head, before jogging to catch up with Lavellan. His armor created a clamor that echoed over the old stones, filling the silence with its cacophony. "Don't go," he pleaded, grabbing her arm. She whipped around as if to slap him but stopped when she saw his eyes. Those eyes, filled with ferocity shrouded by immense desperation, were so hauntingly lulling. They nearly pulled her in like a fish to a baited hook. Maybe, under different circumstances, it would have taken all her strength to free herself from his pleading grasp. She had known his feelings for her years ago. He simply would not let go. "Let my soldiers take care of Solas," he begged. Cullen's presence mocked her ability to forgive. There stood before her a man who would give everything simply to see her smile and who, if possible, would die before he saw her perish.

For years he stood in the corner of her eye, waiting for her to abandon a forsaken love for his, one of warmth and happiness and little children running about. Her heart stopped at the thought of children, and not for the first time. So, there stood before her, at this very moment, two futures. One could hold children, with Cullen smiling at her from across the room in a lovely little cabin with smoke puffing out of the chimney. His scar would curl up with that grin in the most ingratiating way. The other future bled into this one. Daggers of magic sliced open the sky. Demons poured out from the Fade. People screamed. Cullen and the rest of Lavellan's companions ran forward, weapons bared, though hopeless against the onslaught. Lambs to the slaughter. Lavellan was on her knees as Solas stood beside her, his hand on her back. He grinned madly at the destruction. He said to her, "Isn't it beautiful?"

No. No! That wasn't him! Solas wouldn't do that! Lavellan chased away the vision, replaced it with the image of the cabin. A cabin, nestled under orange and yellow leafy boughs raining leaves on its pine needle-coated roof. Smoke puffed out the chimney continuously, keeping the family inside warm when outside the babbling streams were already freezing. Three children with pointed ears ran about chasing each other with carved wooden griffins and dragons. The girl, five years old, held a wooden sword. She swung at the two younger boys, crying out, "I'm the Inquizter!" Shaelle sat before a crackling fireplace, drinking that rare drink––coffee, was it? The warmth of it seeped through the mug and into her fingers. Arms rested on her shoulders from behind. She leaned her head against an arm. A smooth voice whispered beside her ear, "_Ar lath ma, vhenan_."

She replied softly into his shirtsleeve, "I love you too, Solas."

Who said this couldn't be hers?

"Lavellan?" Cullen's voice questioned.

Again she returned to reality moments later, a bit discombobulated. She realized tears were running down her face. She performed that fluid motion, erasing the very memory of them with her simulated grace. Solas's voice from the dream whispered in her ear. "_Ar lath ma, vhenan_." The images of her children would not leave her memory. She remembered each of their faces, each of their names––Livra, Theran, and Braven––what they could have learned and done together. Had it not been for that stupid, idiotic, foolish plan of his, they could have a family, a real life! Why did Solas have to tear open the damned Veil? Why did he think he had to die? Why did he not realize that their perfect future was _just_ within reach?

Despite Cullen being taller than her, Lavellan stared at him over her nose, ignoring the new tears that had sprung up. How deplorable for such a strong man to have fallen so low, for him to beg for something that would never happen. It would never happen. Never happen. Never. A tear dripped. "Find love that is kind to you, Cullen," she spoke as levelly as she could, "Or better yet, free yourself from love before it enthralls you." She added bitterly, "That is your only salvation in this world." She tugged her arm free and continued walking. Her voice was so empty, she could have been Tranquil.

He began, "Shaelle––"

"Shaelle is dead," she replied without emotion. "She died the day the Inquisitor was born." Lavellan slammed the door behind her. Cullen was only inches from a door decorating his face.

Lavellan stomped through the vacant hall. She stepped into the garden outside without taking note of the fact that winter had seized the outdoors. The small trees lifted up their spindly arms to the sky roiling with gray clouds lacking moisture. The skeletons of bushes protruded from the few inches of snow that coated the barren ground. No one proclaimed the Chant any longer here. No birds flew over Skyhold, with the exception of Leliana's few remaining ravens. Noise was as dead as the flora.

The hinges of the door squeaked as Lavellan pushed it open. Motes of dust fluttered as she entered the room, their presence only known due to the light source entombed in those four stone walls. A mirror taller than Lavellan stood vibrant against the gray tones of the world. Its undulating surface rippled with the most stunning pinks and greens and blues. This was not how it was supposed to look. Typically, it would shine with shades of blue. This meant just what she wished it would. Solas knew they had found him, and he was bringing her to him. That would bypass the Crossroads, her soldiers, and his agents. Lavellan brushed her fingers along a short magic stave that she could wield with her one hand. Just in case.

Lavellan leapt through the eluvian.

The surface slid over her skin like warm water. She emerged feeling refreshed and alert. Around her was a temple. Magic permeated the air. It came from the very stones of this ancient structure. Gigantic trees provided shade for the ground below with their immense verdant canopies. Parrots squawked in disgruntlement at her sudden arrival and lifted off.

He turned around ever so slowly. Lavellan's lips parted. Her stern face softened. Solas was the same as he had been five years ago. Five years of waiting for him, five years of agony for her, five years of torture, and he was as youthful as the day he had absconded. Except for one detail. His eyes that had been oceans of gray green, eyes that had held the wisdom, hopes, dreams, failures, and disappointments of thousands of years now stared at her, gleaming, their pools of passion and knowledge scoured away by a pulsating red light. Lavellan's hand shot up to her mouth. She closed her eyes, shook her head. Surely she was imagining things. Solas would not do this to himself. He would not. Solas could not. He hated red lyrium. He hated it. He hated it!

"_Vhenan_."

That heart-stopping word in his once mellifluous voice cracked and grinded like stone on stone, like crunching beetles underfoot, like dry bones. Like death.

The image of the cabin flickered before her, eventually becoming more real than the elven temple she stood in. She rose from before the hearth and padded toward the window. Red lightning struck the trees. Fire consumed them. Red streaks sliced the sky into tatters that waved like ribbons as they fell and then dissolved into nothing. The atmosphere was soon red. Just red. Shaelle pulled the curtains closed with such haste that the rod fell from its brackets, clattering on the wooden floor. Livra, Theran, and Braven huddled together, whimpering. "_Mamae_," they cried, "what's going on?" Livra put her arms around her little brothers and tried to look brave, but her face still held a panicked, questioning stare.

Shaelle ran and threw her arm around them. She whispered into their hair, "It will be all right. Everything will be all right." It sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "Solas, what's––" She turned around to see her husband's face split with a wild grin. His eyes glowed the same red as the sky which was now consuming the earth. It unraveled the world outside. It crept toward the cabin. Shaelle shut her eyes, squeezed her children tight as if that could save them from their fast-approaching doom. Shaelle felt her heart stop, and it was at that moment that she asked, "Why?" Lavellan found herself sobbing. Solas's arm was around her. She did not remember that happening. A sickening aura of corruption surrounded him. She endured it only because it was Solas. She let her head rest against his wolf pelt. Despite the corruption, it still smelled like him. She released a weak sigh of relief.

"It was the only way," he whispered in her ear as he rocked her back and forth. If she focused, _really_ focused, she could still hear his voice under that crackling.

"Why let them find you?" she questioned, her voice muffled in the wolfskin.

He wavered. He never wavered. Lavellan stiffened. "I told you all those years ago that I walk the _din'anshiral_."

"When you walk the _din'anshiral_, I walk it too!" She clenched her fist defiantly.

Solas chuckled feebly at her devotion. He breathed deeply, as if trying to record in his memory her sweet scent. He stroked her hair. He ran its fingers down its length. He leaned against her. They supported each other's weight. He finally finished in a croaking utterance, "I have reached the end of the journey."

She shoved him away from her, snarling. She ran her eyes over his haggard frame. He _had_ changed; she saw that now. Most of his weight was now on his staff. In fact, both hands clutched it, white-knuckled. His skin was pallid. His eyes were sunken, ringed in darkness, despite the eerie glow of his red orbs. How _dare_ he do this to himself? How _dare_ he do this to her? She whipped out her stave. Its skull-tipped end already crackled with lightning. Her ice blue eyes were a fiery rage. Her unkempt red hair seemed a blaze itself. His lips parted. His eyes widened and then narrowed in dismay. His staff's halla head-carved end held no new magic. His crimson gaze held an infinitely greater portion of anguish, of begging, than Cullen's had. "Please, _vhenan_," he rasped, "give me this time to––"

"'Give me your _time_?' Give me _your_ _time_?" She released a bolt of lightning that struck near his feet. He shielded himself with a minor ward. "I gave you everything, including my time! I have nothing left to give! I waited seven years for you to return to me. You could have contacted me at any time. And when I did meet you, it was for you to take my arm from me!" _Crack_. A bolt of lightning. "To tell me you lied to me and let me fall hopelessly in love with you!" _Crack_. "You didn't have the self-control to say goodbye before your hook caught my damn heart!" _Crack. _"You left me with nothing! No clan. No gods. No Anchor. No arm. No Inquisition. No _vhenan_." The last word struck just as a bolt of lightning did. It sent ripples across his ward. "Everyone left at Skyhold thinks I've lost it." She shook her head, unaware of the tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. "I stopped caring long ago."

"_Vhenan!_"

"What?" She narrowed her eyes, infuriated that he had disrupted her tirade.

"This is my last chance to make amends." He paused to see if she would fire another bolt at him. "For seven years, the thought of you was what barred me from forsaking the morals you taught me. For seven years I questioned my every choice. For seven years you were what kept me alive." He stepped forward until he could take her hands in his. "_Vhenan_, my _din'anshiral_ is not my duty to my people. My _din'anshiral_ is my absolute love of you, and though I have reached the end here, I will await your presence in the Beyond." She started to say she loved him. She started to say she forgave him. She started to say she could not bear his absence any longer. But in times of great emotion, memories have a way of flooding a mind to the point of drowning, and it was at this point that Lavellan could not breathe. It seemed that every minute of those seven years cascaded into her, crushing loneliness, loss, depression, and the memories of a life, of children, she would never have all built up against the dam that was her self-control until it burst through, the rapids of sheer anger engulfing any notions of forgiveness that dared to have arisen. The fury rose until it became her, became the very air. The atmosphere crackled and sputtered with electricity. Solas squeezed her hands. Her eyes were closed. She could not see the expression on his face: relief.

Livra, Theran, and Braven huddled around Shaelle and Solas as the two recited their adventures. Shaelle clasped Solas's hand and smiled at him as they recounted the day they met. They told of their siding with the mages, of Shaelle's accidental time traveling, of the Winter Palace, of her trip to the Fade, all until Shaelle reunited with Solas and found their much-deserved happily ever after. Finally, the children fell soundly asleep in their beds. Shaelle grinned at Solas knowingly, and they retired to their room.

Shaelle awoke in the morning when lightning stabbed the sky.

The energy from Lavellan's hands became forking bolts of lightning that cut through the air. They struck Solas from every angle within a second. Their crack was deafening. Lavellan opened her eyes at the sound. She glanced around in confusion, unsure of what had just happened. She blinked at Solas who lay on the ground. "Solas? Solas, are you okay?" When he did not answer, she knelt beside him. "Solas?" She shook him gently. "What just happened? Wake up." She shook him again, harder. "Wake up. I need to know what happened. If it's the red lyrium, I need to get you to Skyhold now." She sniffed. It was then that she noticed it, an acrid smoke that wafted on the air. The scent that only lightning leaves. Along with the scent of burning fur. She turned back to Solas with renewed urgency. She shook him even harder. Her eyes watered. Whether from the odor or the situation she could not say. "Get up. Get up, damn it! Stand! Stand!" She punched his arm. Nothing. Her breath became a soft whimper. "Get up, _vhenan_. Please get up." She rested her head on his chest. His silent chest. "Livra. Theran. Braven. They need you." She whispered into the wolfskin, "_I_ need you." She felt magic tickle her skin as it departed his body. She pounded her fist against his chest. "You can't do this to me," she shouted through a fountain of tears that erupted without end. "I found you. I _finally_ found you." Her voice cracked. She stroked the line of his jawbone. His face was too peaceful. It was supposed to be alight with wonder! He was supposed to be telling her tales of the Fade, smiling when he saw her smile. He was not supposed to be so quiet, so pale, so cold. "I didn't mean to. I forgive you. I'm sorry. _Ir abelas. Ir abelas!_" She waited for the clemency she knew would never come. No parrots called. No leaves rustled. No wind blew. She was accustomed to that kind of silence. No heartbeat. That, she was not used to. That, she would never be used to. "I have more to give," she uttered. She wept into the wolfskin of his armor. She wished that would expunge her grief. But if her wishes could be granted, Solas would be alive again fifty times over.

Eventually, her racking sobs held no more tears, for there were none left. "_Ar lath ma._" He was dead. It would make no difference. How could three words possibly describe the anguish that killed her? How could three words say so much and yet feel so, so small? But then, how could three words change the rest of her life? "We found him." He found her. She loved him. He loved her. He was dead. Why did three words only make things worse? So many questions. No answers here. How could an immortal die? How could she live without her _vhenan_? There was an answer for that one: she couldn't. The cabin was gone. Her children would never exist. Her one hope in the world lay dead beneath her at her hand. The world, her friends, thought her mad. Shaelle had died long ago, but Lavellan took a shuddering breath in that elven temple. "_Ar lath ma . . . vhenan_." Her last word caught as she choked. A pain stabbed in her chest. She rested her head on Solas's chest, and on his still heart Inquisitor Lavellan breathed her last breath.

Cullen found Lavellan in that temple. He wept for her. He wept for a long time. He returned to Skyhold with her in his arms. His soldiers brought Solas's body back to Skyhold. Cullen cried and then mourned until his sorrow became scars that would never quite heal.

Leliana believed Lavellan had died of a "broken heart." They buried her with the rest of Clan Lavellan, and there Solas, too, was laid to rest beside his lover. Cullen visited her grave every two weeks to give her dark red roses––her favorite––in spite of the journey taking six days there and back again.

In the Beyond, Solas and Shaelle walked hand in hand beside all they had lost and having more than they could have wished to find in the eternal peace they had been waiting for since long before the Dragon Age.

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own any properties of Dragon Age.**

***din'anshiral=journey of death**

**ir abelas=I'm sorry**

**ar lath ma, vhenan=I love you, my heart**

****From elven language wiki**

**Thank you so much for reading! I love you all! Have an amazing day. I loved writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it! :D Please consider following, favoriting, and leaving a review.**


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